Alderman, union fight Emanuel plan to reduce police and fire dispatchers
BY FRAN SPIELMAN
Chicago firefighter-turned-alderman Nick Sposato (36th) and the union representing fire dispatchers maneuvered Monday to kill Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to reduce the ranks of police and fire dispatchers at the city’s 911 emergency center.
Fire and EMS dispatcher Jeff Johnson , union steward for IBEW Local 9, said the mayor’s plan to eliminate the jobs of 17 fire dispatchers, lay off nine others and shrink the supervisory ranks from 13 to 8 could send response times and employee burn-out rates through the roof.
The jobs of 45 police dispatchers would also be eliminated. So would four of 22 radio repair technicians at a time when radio and data frequencies need to be reprogrammed to comply with a Federal Communications Commission mandate.
“We strive to answer every call in under two rings. With these cuts, it’ll go from two seconds to 15 seconds. That’s a very dangerous number,” Johnson said Monday.
“If we have call takers working 16 hours a day, people are gonna get burned out. They’re gonna start making mistakes. It’s gonna put public safety in danger. They’ll end up paying more in overtime and in lawsuits” than they would have in salaries.
Sposato said he doesn’t buy the mayor’s office’s argument that paying overtime to a leaner staff of dispatchers would be “less expensive than having a full-time staff person” who is not needed year-round.
Not when dispatchers are already stretched so thin, some of them are doubling their annual salaries in overtime.
“You’re playing with fire there. You know what happens when you play with fire? You get burned,” Sposato said. “People are furious all the time about being put on hold. We have a lot of problems with 911 services, through no fault of dispatchers. I don’t want to cut dispatchers. I don’t think that’s the place to cut. It would lead to an increase in response times.”
Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) argued that 911 dispatchers “get burned out just like air traffic controllers. And if they make one mistake, it can be deadly.” Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd) called the 911 center “one of the many places not to cut.”
Ald. John Arena (45th) noted that front-line workers have been “cut back to skeleton levels” in tree trimming, street and alley light repairs and he would hate to see similar cuts impact the 911 center.
“A full-time employee with benefits and pension can cost more [than] paying overtime to one employee, but what’s the burn-out rate? That’s an intense job. We have to look at that. I want to know how are we gonna deliver services in a critical area like that when they’re making this many cuts,” Arena said.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday that Emanuel’s plan to lay off more than 500 city employees and eliminate 776 vacancies could impact the 911 center in a way that could slow response times or stretch call takers to the limit.
In an e-mail response to the Chicago Sun-Times, Emanuel’s communications director Chris Mather argued that it was “completely speculative and incorrect” for the union to suggest that layoffs would trigger an increase in response times to 911 calls.
The operations floor has already been operating with vacant positions unfilled and “continues to maintain the highest level of efficiency,” she said.
“Residents can still expect a fast response followed by a quick dispatch of resources,” Mather said, noting that the city has “budgeted for any possible increase in overtime.”
In 2009, more than 60 operators at the 911 center each earned more than $20,000 in overtime pay. One racked up $90,552 in overtime, more than his $77,784 annual salary.
Sun-Times analysis: Who will be hit by Emanuel’s 517 layoffs
BY FRAN SPIELMAN
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has talked about laying off more than 500 city employees and eliminating 776 vacant jobs, but he has not identified them or explained what city services will suffer.
Now, an analysis by the Chicago Sun-Times and one of the impacted unions shows where the ax will fall — in a way that could slow response time to 911 calls or stretch call takers to the limit, decimate Chicago Public libraries and force dramatic cuts in health and human services.
At the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, where 911 call takers have more than doubled their annual salaries in overtime over the years, the budget calls for 108 layoffs and the elimination of 80 vacancies. Seventy-three of the layoffs are recently fired Loop traffic-control-aides.
The ranks of police dispatchers would be reduced by 45 or 10.3 percent. The number of fire communications operators would drop by 17 or 16.6 percent.
“Management … is saying the wait time for a 911 call will go from one-to-three seconds to ten-to-fifteen seconds, possibly more. This is very disturbing,” said an OEMC employee, who asked to remain anonymous.
Employees have also been told that four of 22 radio repair technicians stand to lose their jobs at a time when radio and data frequencies need to be reprogrammed to comply with a Federal Communications Commission mandate.
“A shortage of techs will cause a delay in abiding by this mandate and also in replacing aging equipment. A failure of the older equipment during an emergency without repair personnel would be catastrophic,” the employee said.
In 2009, more than 60 operators at the 911 center each earned more than $20,000 in overtime pay. One racked up $90,552 in overtime, more than his $77,784 annual salary.
Still, the mayor’s office defended the job cuts, noting that paying overtime “is less expensive than having a full-time staff person” who is not needed year-round.
“Safety remains the top priority, and we will continue to maintain our efficiency,” said Kathleen Strand, a spokeswoman for the city’s Office of Budget and Management.
“We know our historical high volume and peak time and, if we have to provide overtime, it has already been accounted for in the budget.”
As for the FCC deadline, Strand said, “The city is making every effort to meet this mandate and the success of executing an inter-operable communications plan is not directly tied to the number of electrical technicians that will be laid off.”
Emanuel has talked about reducing library hours on Monday and Friday mornings. But, that does not begin to explain the 363 job cuts he has made there.
Sixty librarians, 59 library clerks and all of the remaining “pages” — workers charged with re-shelving books — would be cut.
In 2009, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley laid off 120 library pages, nearly half the complement. When books piled up because there were not enough people to re-stack shelves, Daley was forced to reduce weekday hours to accommodate an “exhausted” and overworked library staff.
Henry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31, called the Health Department cuts the most devastating of all.
The budget calls for closing six of the city’s 12 mental health clinics, fully funding just two of them and implementing the mayor’s summer plan to have seven city health clinics partner with federally-qualified health centers.
Nearly 200 grant-funded positions would also be cut from the Department of Family and Support Services. The targeted workers serve Chicago’s most vulnerable residents, including domestic violence victims, the elderly, homeless and at-risk youth.
“If you presented this budget to [Republican House Speaker] John Boehner in Congress, he’d pass it in a minute. I hope the City Council won’t,” Bayer said.
“The mayor is cutting into basic services and laying off hundreds of front-line employees who provide those vital services. ... I can only conclude he’s not concerned about providing vital services to people in communities. His total focus seems to be on the business community.”
Strand insisted that the city was “reinvesting $500,000 in enhanced psychiatry services and care coordination” in the consolidated mental health clinics. That’s a move she claimed would provide “improved service at a lower cost.”
“The city will maintain services for those most in need — uninsured patients — but provide the services in a more cost-effective manner. The city will actually be able to increase services provided and save $3 million,” she said, noting that all 3,000 uninsured patients would continue to be served by the city.
As for cuts in the Department of Family and Support Services, Strand noted that the grant-funded positions were eliminated “in direct response to funding cuts that took place earlier this year” at the state and federal levels.
Five years and $23M later, Chicago fire communications system isn't in use
City gave Motorola a no-bid contract in 2006
By John Byrne, Tribune reporter
The city has spent nearly $23 million on a new Chicago Fire Department digital communications system that still doesn't work after more than five years — a shortcoming back in the spotlight following a federal report that criticizes the agency for not having enough radios during a December fire that killed two firefighters.
Yet as costs mount and test after test fails, there is still no firm timeline on when the system will be up and running.
"Sometime in 2012," Roderick Drew, a spokesman for the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications, said Friday when asked how soon the 3,000 new radios would come online.
The switch to a better communications system has been delayed since Motorola got a no-bid contract in March 2006 under what the city's chief internal watchdog has said were questionable circumstances.
Chicago, which makes do with its half-century-old analog system, is the largest city in the country that doesn't equip every firefighter with a radio.
Investigators at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health cited the lack of radios as a contributing factor in the Dec. 22 deaths of two firefighters. The fire in an abandoned building in the 1700 block of East 75th Street killed firefighters Corey Ankum and Edward Stringer and injured 19 others.
The federal agency found that only five of the 13 firefighters who were in the building when the roof collapsed had radios. None of those firefighters provided supervisors outside the building with a description of the conditions inside, the report said.
But city officials say they haven't bought more of the analog radios currently in use because they're waiting for the Fire Department's new digital communications system to be ready. "That would be an expense we can't afford," Fire Commissioner Robert Hoff said Friday.
Hoff said a lack of radios was not the problem at the fire that killed Ankum and Stringer. The fire chief urged patience, saying digital radios have been problematic for fire departments in big cities across the country.
"When (Motorola) first gave us the radios, they weren't used to what we do," Hoff said. Over the past several years, Motorola has made improvements to the radios and the city's antennas so the equipment will work better, he said. "We're very close to where we need to be," Hoff said.
Repeated tests of the Motorola radios — most recently in July — have revealed problems with firefighters' ability to communicate with one another. Background noise garbles transmissions, there are dead spots and people inside buildings sometimes have trouble getting through to those outside, Drew said.
The firefighters union has been slow to criticize the delays in switching to the new system.
Firefighters Union Local 2 President Thomas Ryan said he wants to see as many of his members with radios as possible, but said he doesn't want to rush to start using the digital system. "There have been some dead spots, some problems with guys understanding each other" during tests, Ryan said.
"The bottom line is, we want to make sure it works before we start using it," Ryan said. "It's not a perfect system (now), but they're trying to get things to the point where it's useful to us."
On Friday, Motorola spokeswoman Matthew Messinger referred questions about the digital radio system to the city.
Chicago firefighters and paramedics use analog radios that are incompatible. If they want to speak to one another, they have to carry two radios, Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said. And if police want to talk to firefighters, a dispatcher at the city's 911 center has to connect them — a process the digital radios are supposed to eliminate.
City officials first said they were seeking a new radio system after a state report criticized the way emergency crews communicated while fighting a 2003 fire at the Cook County Administration Building, 69 W. Washington St. Six people died of smoke inhalation after they became trapped by locked doors in the building's stairwell.
And the federal government has been pushing emergency responders toward digital systems since Sept. 11, 2001, because they allow firefighters, police officers and other agencies to more easily communicate.
Under then-Mayor Richard Daley, the city awarded the contract to Motorola without a bidding process.
Motorola's long relationship with Chicago has been key in gaining it lucrative contracts to service the communications needs of the city's first responders without having to compete against other firms for the business.
"Motorola has been dedicated to the City of Chicago for many decades," a Motorola sales manager noted in a 2005 letter asking that the city award the company the digital radio contract rather than going to the open market.
In selecting Motorola without taking bids, OEMC officials said using the company would preserve "the city's prior investment of nearly $2 million" in Motorola equipment purchased earlier, according to city Inspector General Joseph Ferguson. But the city actually had invested only $350,000 in that equipment, according to a report Ferguson's office released in October.
"OEMC had falsified documents to push the initial purchase through an unrelated contract with the vendor," the report concluded. "OEMC essentially 'bootstrapped' a $23 million contract on an earlier, $350,000 fraudulently obtained purchase."
The cost of the Motorola system originally was estimated to be $14 million, but it has ballooned to nearly $23 million amid dozens of change orders. Meanwhile, Motorola was given another no-bid city contract in 2007, for $6 million to provide radio devices.
The larger Motorola digital communications system contract was scheduled to run out in February 2011, but OEMC granted the company a one-year extension.
Gary Schenkel, the new OEMC executive director brought in by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, said getting the system right is most important. The city will start issuing digital radios to paramedics this fall, he said.
"We'll have the whole program ready to go in 2012," Schenkel said
10 years after 9/11 terror attacks, emergency workers still struggling to talk via radios
By Associated Press, Published: August 31
WASHINGTON — Amid the chaos of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, emergency responders found they could not communicate with each other. That problem persists 10 years later, according to a review of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations.
A National Preparedness Group report released Wednesday concludes that the recommendation that a nationwide broadband network for emergency responders be created “continues to languish.”
“Despite the lives at stake, the recommendation to improve radio interoperability for first responders has stalled because of a political fight over whether to allocate 10 MHz of radio spectrum ... directly to public safety for a nationwide network, or auction it off to a commercial wireless bidder who would then be required to provide priority access on its network dedicated to public safety during emergencies,” says the report, whose authors include 9/11 Commission chairmen Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean.
Law enforcement and emergency responders around the country have long supported the creation of the communication network. In January, President Barack Obama announced his support for allocating the radio space, known as the D-block spectrum, to police and other emergency workers.
Bills that would set aside the D-block and create a communications network have been introduced in both the House and the Senate this year but so far have not been passed in either chamber.
Several big wireless carriers have supported auctioning off the airwaves to the wireless industry, a move that the government has estimated would raise about $3.1 billion. That could help pay to build a public safety communications network.
The Federal Communications Commission has tried to auction off the D Block before. But that 2008 auction required that the winning bidder help build a network to be shared by first responders and give them priority in an emergency. It did not attract any serious bidders.
The National Preparedness Group report said statewide communications interoperability plans and the creation of a national emergency communications plan have improved emergency coordination across different jurisdictions. But more work needs to be done and the ultimate solution, the report said, is to follow the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation and create a nationwide communications network.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
911 operator killed in crash involving stolen vehicle
A 911 operator driving home after completing her shift died after a man fleeing from police in a stolen luxury SUV drove into her vehicle in the Bucktown neighborhood, police said.
The accident occurred a little after 6 a.m. near Armitage Avenue and Hoyne Avenue, police said.
The victim was identified as Marciea Adkins, 42. She was pronounced dead at 6:54 a.m. at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
At about 6:15 a.m., Shakespeare District officers stopped the SUV at Blackhawk Street and Elston Avenue after it blew through a red light, police said in a statement.
After police stepped out of their vehicle, the suspect reversed the SUV and struck the car of a police supervisor who was on the scene and then fled in the vehicle, police said.
Police followed the man's SUV -- which later turned out to be reported stolen -- as the suspect blew through another stop sign while traveling northbound on Hoyne and struck a vehicle driven by Adkins which was traveling westbound an Armitage a little more than a mile away from the original stop, officials said.
After striking Adkins' car and a second, parked vehicle, the suspect fled the SUV on foot before being taken into custody, police said.
Adkins worked as a 911 dispatcher, according to officials from the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
According to an e-mail press release from Chicago EOMC Executive Gray Schenkel, the agency was "shocked and deeply saddened" by the death of the woman, who had been driving home after her work shift when the accident happened. The release said the woman had worked at OEMC since December 1996.
The release said said that "According to her coworkers and supervisors, she was the nicest, most positive person you would ever want to meet."
At 11 a.m., the woman's car was removed from the busy Bucktown corner where it had appeared to slam sideways -- on the driver's side -- into a fire hydrant.
A Range Rover that was also involved in the crash smashed into a building just north of Armitage on Hoyne.
The early morning crash woke up many in the neighborhood. They described the chilling sight of the victim, who was slumped in the driver's seat, and a desperate attempt by firefighters to free her.
Some also saw or heard a man try to flee the scene after jumping from the Range Rover and later said they saw the man taken from the block in handcuffs. The man is hospitalized but remains in custody, police said.
Witnesses also said several Chicago police vehicles were on the scene within seconds of the accident.
UPDATE:
On any given shift, police dispatcher Marciea Adkins could have monitored a police pursuit, her voice providing a key link between the officers in the chase and other units on the street.
Adkins died early Sunday driving home from her overnight shift after her car was struck by a teenager fleeing from police in stolen SUV, police said. The 16-year-old had touched off a nearly 2-mile pursuit after he backed into a police vehicle during a traffic stop for failing to stop at a red light, police said.
Adkins, 42, was married to a dispatcher for the Chicago Fire Department, and the couple had a young daughter.
The city flag at Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications was lowered to half-staff on Sunday, and Adkins’ body was escorted by police and fire vehicles from Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Grief-stricken friends and family gathered at her Northwest Side home, which is less than a mile from the intersection where Adkins was struck -- at Hoyne and Armitage avenues in the Bucktown neighborhood.
“According to her co-workers and supervisors, she was the nicest, most positive person you would ever want to meet,” OEMC Executive Director Gary Schenkel said in a statement.
The crash, at 6:15 a.m., startled several Bucktown residents from their sleep as Adkins’ car seemed to buckle around a fire hydrant on the driver’s side and the SUV, a Range Rover, crashed into a building.
After police had tried to stop the teen at Blackhawk Street and Elston Avenue, he fled north, winding up on Hoyne, where he fatally struck Adkins as she drove west on Armitage, police said.
According to department policy, officers must contact an OEMC dispatcher with details about any pursuit, and a supervisor must monitor and manage the chase. Sources told the Tribune that the pursuit Sunday was called into the dispatch center and monitored.
Police had activated their emergency lights and sirens, but the speed the vehicles were traveling was not released Sunday.
After the crash, the 16-year-old bolted from the SUV, rolled over the hood, darted down a narrow gangway and into an alley and fled west, a witness said. Officers did the same. They rolled over hoods and chased him on foot, catching up with him nearby.
“It was just like you see in cop videos,” said a woman who didn’t want to be named because she helped identify the teen to police. “They were doing their job for sure.”
Once arrested, the teen, who allegedly had been drinking, was taken to a hospital for treatment. No charges had been filed Sunday evening.
It was the chase on foot that woke up Teddy Vehar, 29, whose window is beside the gangway the teen charged through. He heard “flip-flop” steps, he said.
“It sounded like he had big old feet,” said Vehar, who grabbed a bat and ran to his front door in the 2000 block of North Hoyne, preparing to confront a criminal.
But outside, he instead saw Adkins’ wrecked car. She was trapped and not moving. Others said her head was slumped to the side.
Stunned, Vehar offered his bat to help free Adkins, who he said appeared to be turning white. “The poor lady,” Vehar said.
Vehar and others said the Fire Department worked frantically to free Adkins, crawling over the hood of the car to reach her.
“It’s just sad,” said Mike Byrne, 29. “Looking at her, you knew she was gone, and even if she wasn’t, it wasn’t going to be easy to bring her back.”
After freeing her, the firefighters turned to the trunk of the car, ripping it apart, presumably to make sure there were not any other victims.
Several neighbors were shaken by the violent crash. Byrne noted that it happened about an hour before many in the busy neighborhood typically woke up.
“There’s so many people that walk around here with strollers … people with dogs,” he said.
And as the crash investigation stretched through the morning, the streets filled with joggers, dog-walkers and families pushing strollers, many of whom stopped to gaze on the mangled vehicles.
“It just makes my heart so sad,” said the woman who watched the foot chase. “All for a Range Rover.”
A woman at Adkins’ home said the family did not want to comment. Adkins had worked as a dispatcher since 1996.
Shortly after 11 a.m., a procession of six cars and one ambulance left the hospital for the medical examiner’s office, the lights flashing on police and fire vehicles but the sirens were silent. Loved ones rode in Ambulance 43 accompanying Adkins.
Two hospital employees watched as the solemn journey began.
NEWEST UPDATE:
A 16-year-old boy was charged this morning in connection with a fatal traffic crash that left a police dispatcher dead over the weekend.
Marquis Harrison, of the 200 block of South Lotus Avenue, was charged as an adult with one count of first-degree murder and felony burglary, according to the Cook County state's attorney's office. He was also charged with misdemeanor DUI and received two citations.
Authorities said the teen was driving a stolen Range Rover at 6:15 a.m. Sunday and was being chased by police when he plowed into a car near the intersection of Hoyne and Armitage avenues that was driven by Marciea Adkins, a veteran police dispatcher on her way home after working the overnight shift.
The crash startled severalBucktown residents from their sleep as Adkins’ car seemed to buckle around a fire hydrant on the driver’s side, and the SUV, crashed into a building.
The 16-year-old had touched off a nearly 2-mile pursuit after he backed into a police vehicle during a traffic stop for failing to stop at a red light, police said.
Adkins, 42, was married to a dispatcher for the Chicago Fire Department and the couple had a young daughter.
The city flag at the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications was lowered to half-staff on Sunday, and Adkins’ body was escorted by police and fire vehicles from Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
After police had tried to stop the teen at Blackhawk Street and Elston Avenue, he fled north, winding up on Hoyne, where he struck Adkins as she drove west on Armitage, police said.
According to department policy, officers must contact an OEMC dispatcher with details about any pursuit, and a supervisor must monitor and manage the chase. Sources told the Tribune that the pursuit Sunday was called into the dispatch center and monitored.
Police had activated their emergency lights and sirens, but the speed the vehicles were traveling was not released Sunday.
After the crash, the 16-year-old bolted from the SUV, rolled over the hood, darted down a narrow gangway and into an alley and fled west, a witness said. Officers did the same. They rolled over hoods and chased him on foot, catching up with him nearby.
“It was just like you see in cop videos,” said a woman who didn’t want to be named because she helped identify the teen to police. “They were doing their job for sure.”
Once arrested, the teen, who allegedly had been drinking, was taken to a hospital for treatment.
It was the chase on foot that woke up Teddy Vehar, 29, whose window is beside the gangway the teen charged through. He heard “flip-flop” steps, he said.
“It sounded like he had big old feet,” said Vehar, who grabbed a bat and ran to his front door in the 2000 block of North Hoyne, preparing to confront a criminal.
But outside, he instead saw Adkins’ wrecked car. She was trapped and not moving. Others said her head was slumped to the side.
Stunned, Vehar offered his bat to help free Adkins, who he said appeared to be turning white. “The poor lady,” Vehar said.
Vehar and others said the Fire Department worked frantically to free Adkins, crawling over the hood of the car to reach her.
“It’s just sad,” said Mike Byrne, 29. “Looking at her, you knew she was gone, and even if she wasn’t, it wasn’t going to be easy to bring her back.”
The teen is expected to appear in bond court at noon.
More than 21,000 retired city employees under age 65 will pay 15 percent more for their health insurance — an increase a union official called “alarming” and an expert said spotlitghts a $1.3 billion unfunded liability for Chicago taxpayers.
Paul Geiger, general counsel for the Fraternal Order of Police, said the first double-digit increase since 2004 will create an “enormous hardship” for retired couples on fixed incomes who are not yet eligible for Medicare.
Beginning July 1, their health insurance premiums will rise by $89-a-month — from $626 to $715. The monthly cost for Medicare-eligible couples will decline by $20 — from $217 to $197. read more...
Gary W. Schenkel was the director of the Office of the Federal Protective Service, one of the six divisions of the National Protection and Programs Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security from March 2007 until July 2010. A retired Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel, Schenkel has experience in a wide range of arenas, including organizational transformation efforts, security planning for public facilities, logistical planning and execution and business administration. more...
An IGO investigation determined that three Office of Emergency Management & Communications
(OEMC) Foremen of Linemen falsified their mileage reimbursement requests.5 Thirteen surveillances of Foreman A‟s personal vehicle, 8 surveillances of Foreman B‟s personal vehicle, and 3 surveillances of the Foreman C‟s personal vehicle were conducted while parked at their 1345
W. Madison Avenue work location. The investigation found that on 11 of the 13 surveillance days (or 85% of the time), Foreman A
falsified his mileage reimbursement entries by claiming he drove a total of 388 miles in his car during his work hours when surveillance established that his car never moved. Based on the false entries for those surveillance days, Foreman A improperly claimed and received a total of $226 in mileage reimbursement payments from the City. The investigation also found that on 7 of 8 surveillance days (or 87% of the time), Foreman B
falsified his mileage reimbursement entries by claiming he drove a total of 243 miles in his personal car during work hours when surveillance established in fact that his car never moved. Based on the false entries for those surveillance days, Foreman B improperly claimed and received a total of $139 in mileage reimbursement from the City. Lastly, the investigation found that on 3 of 4 surveillance days, Foreman C falsified his mileage reimbursement entries by claiming he drove a total of 101 miles in his personal car during work hours when surveillance established his car never moved. Based on the false entries for those surveillance days, Foreman C improperly claimed and received a total of $59 in mileage reimbursement.... The IGO also conducted surveillance of the General Foreman of Lineman who supervised Foreman
of Linemen A, B and C.6 Surveillance observed the General Foreman swiping in for work at a fire station near his residence on eight of twelve days, and at a police station near his residence on a ninth day. This conduct violated OEMC‟s time-keeping policy requiring employees to swipe in at their assigned location. By not swiping at his assigned location, the General Foreman falsely indicated to the City that he/she was at work when he/she was not. In addition, after one of the improper fire station swipes, surveillance observed the General Foreman return to his residence and remain there for 55 minutes while on the clock.... ________________________________________________________________________________
An IGO investigation determined that in an attempt to get out of a parking ticket, an OEMC
employee told multiple police officers that she worked for the Chicago Police Department‟s Internal Affairs Division (IAD). After observing a CPD Officer write a parking ticket for illegally parking in a bus stop, the OEMC employee pursued the ticketing officer, claiming that she worked at IAD, and that she wanted the ticket “taken care of.” In so doing, the OEMC employee showed the CPD Officer her City of Chicago identification card. The OEMC employee then called the CPD Officer‟s supervisor, maintaining to that supervisor and others that she was an IAD employee during several transfers of her call before being able to speak with a Lieutenant. The Lieutenant reviewed the circumstances surrounding the ticket, and determined that the
citation was not issued in error. When looking for the OEMC employee‟s contact information on the CPD database in order to return the ticket to her, the Lieutenant discovered that the OEMC employee worked for OEMC, not IAD. When the IGO confronted the OEMC employee about the incident, she admitted to misrepresenting her employment to the CPD and admitted that she asked the parking ticket to be “taken care of.” The IGO recommended that the OEMC employee be discharged for violating the City Personnel Rule that bars “having other City employees perform services or directing other city employees to perform services for unauthorized purposes.” OEMC agreed, and termination proceedings have been initiated.
To the Mayor, Members of the City Council, the City Clerk, the City Treasurer, and the residents of the City of Chicago: The Inspector General's Office ("I GO") performed an audit of payments disbursed by the Office of Emergency Management and Communications ("OEMC") from January 1, 2008 to September 30, 2009. The purpose of the audit was to review, test, and evaluate procedures related to payment disbursements and contract management to determine whether OEMC had effective and efficient operations and internal controls, as well as adequate policies and procedures in place. Based upon the results of our audit, we determined that internal controls were not adequate to prevent waste and misconduct and, therefore, resulted in substandard disbursement and contract management processes. More specifically, the audit found deficiencies in internal controls resulting in the following negative consequences: • Voucher Manipulation: OEMC's non-payroll disbursements between January 1,2008 and September 30, 2009 totaled $72,880,188. The sample reviewed during the audit included $38,633,405, or 53% of the total amount disbursed. We found that at least $13,678,786, which equates to an extraordinarily high 35% of the commodities purchased in the sample, did not match the goods and services of the original invoices and/or that the actual commodities purchased were not related to the contracts from which they were paid. • Missing Inventory: During the review of vouchers, we identified a sample of goods received totaling $134,583. We met with OEMC representatives to validate the existence of these goods. Of the sample, 38 laserjet printers, 10 computer carrying cases, seven notebook computers and a digital camera could not be located. These missing goods were valued at $19,001, or 15% of the sample. • Common Law Employees: During the audit period, the auditors identified 50 individuals contracted through seven different vendors who were identified as contractors/consultants. Based upon initial discussions with OEMC personnel, the auditors suspected some of these contractors/consultants to be common law employees in violation of the Shakman Accord. A parallel IGO disciplinary investigation focused on one of the seven vendors and subsequently determined that eleven of the contractors/consultants associated with that one vendor alone were, in fact, common law employees. The investigative findings essentially substantiated the existence of the preliminarily identified by the Ioo auditors. During performance of Ioo audit fieldwork, OEMC began formulating and implementing policy and procedural changes responsive to the broad scale, systemic deficiencies revealed by the audit. Accordingly, the !GO credits OEMC officials with acknowledging the audit findings and promptly moving to address them through remedial measures, the nature and effectiveness of which we will evaluate in a future public follow-up report.
Respectfully, Joseph M. Ferguson Inspector General City of Chicago
Is Privatization a Bad Deal for Cities and States?
To save money, New York is turning the clock back on outsourcing by replacing private contractors with city workers.
Outsourcing the Wrong Jobs
Updated April 4, 2011, 10:00 AM
John "Jack" Donahue, a former assistant secretary of labor, is the faculty chairman of Harvard University's Master in Public Policy program and the co-author of "Collaborative Governance: Private Roles for Public Goals in Turbulent Times."
Some things government should do itself. Some things it should outsource. The rules for smart contracting aren’t mysterious. Tasks that are well-defined, easy to monitor and available from competitive suppliers — call them “commodity tasks” — are prime candidates for privatization. Tasks that are complex and mutable, lack clear benchmarks or are immune from competition — “custom tasks” — should be kept in-house.
Governments often perversely outsource jobs that are hard to monitor, yet keep "commodity" jobs like clerical work..
In a perfect world, governments would delegate all the commodity tasks and none of the custom tasks. In the real world, of course, we should expect some jobs to end up in the wrong box. But the pattern should trend to logical sorting, or at worst a random scatter.
In fact, we do lots worse. Much commodity work remains in government — half a million construction jobs, 600,000 food-service workers and more than 3.5 million routine administrative and clerical jobs. Meanwhile, many tasks are outsourced even though they’re hard to monitor, entangled with an agency's overall mission or sheltered from market pressure. Agencies hire private firms to build and run their information technology, manage their personnel systems and craft strategy.
Why this pattern? Blame generation-scale tectonic shifts that opened gaps between public and private work. In the private sector, but not in government, the ceiling has blown off the pay distribution, and the floor has dropped out. Less-skilled workers cling to the public jobs that still pay middle-class wages. More-skilled workers shun government for greener private pastures. The gap at the top starves government of custom-task talent, forcing ill-advised outsourcing. The gap at the bottom means that outsourcing commodity tasks meets ferocious resistance.
Campaigns are underway to drive compensation for less-skilled public workers down to private-sector levels. But narrowing the lower gap addresses just one cause of perverse privatization. And nobody is calling to fix the gap at the top. LINK HERE
Chicago Planning 911 Diversion Program to Encourage Residents Not to Call 911 For Everything
By Dane Placko, FOX Chicago News & Better Government Association
Chicago - For as long as Chicago has had 911, the goal has been to respond to each and every call. But the police, put simply, are overwhelmed.
For every 911 call that deals with a real emergency -- a fire, a shooting, an accident -- the city's Office of Emergency Management receives many more calls from people who need less immediate help for things like loud music, a stolen bicycle, or a drunk on the corner.
"We're still probably the only major city in the country that still responds to calls that other cities do not respond to," said OEMC Deputy Director Clarence Thomas.
In 2010, Chicago's 911 system received over five million calls, but the CPD is down more than 1,100 officers and something has got to give.
"We're not gonna get the additional ten thousand officers or one thousand police officers that everybody would like to have," said CPD Commander Jim Roussell. "So we have to be a little smarter about how we do it."
So to make for a smarter system, FOX Chicago News and the Better Government Association have learned the city has been quietly working on what it calls the "911 Diversion Program," a multi-faceted attempt to take a fresh look at how 911 works and which calls are responded to.
We learned of the 911 Diversion Program while reporting on the Central Austin Neighborhood Association, a group of West Side Austin residents who have been complaining about 911 response.
"We do believe there are certain neighborhoods that do get 100 percent response to all types of calls. And to not do that in this community is not right," said Ron Reid, who with his wife, Serethea, head up the Austin neighbors group. They want the proposed 911 Diversion Program to impact all neighborhoods equally and they're worried that if police don't respond to all quality of life calls, their neighborhood will suffer.
Police point out that they currently dispatch a squad car, often with two officers, to fill out reports for simple thefts and garage break-ins. Under the 911 Diversion Plan, Chicago residents would be encouraged to go online and fill out their own police reports. The program would also encourage citizens to find other ways to deal with quality of life issues, like a noisy bar. Rather than calling the cops, they'll be encouraged to call 311 for other city departments or work proactively with neighborhood groups and aldermen to find solutions.
"In order for it to work, everyone has to buy into the whole process of using 911 to deal with your real emergencies. A drunk in and of itself is not an emergency," Thomas said.
The 911 diversion program is still in the planning stages, there's no date set for a rollout, and it will undoubtedly face scrutiny from the City Council, since Aldermen have in the past put political pressure on the police department to respond to every call.
And there's still the issue of measuring 911 response; the city has refused our Freedom Of Information Act requests for response times.
"If we don't have comparative figures on the 911 response times neighborhood to neighborhood, how can we figure out which neighborhoods need more cops and which need less?" said Andy Shaw, executive director of the BGA. "It's not just about crime statistics. Crime stats are one barometer for the amount of manpower you need. But so is response time to 911. Every neighborhood in Chicago deserves a roughly equal 911 response time."
The city has argued that releasing 911 response times would be like giving the bad guys a map on where to commit crimes.
Activists in Austin Neighborhood Fight to Get Police 911 Response Times
Better Government Association joint investigation
By Dane Placko, FOX Chicago News
Chicago - When you call 911, you hope the police will respond in a matter of minutes.
But some residents of Chicago's West Side Austin neighborhood just hope they'll see a police car at all.
Ron and Serethea Reid have become so alarmed by slow and non-existent 911 response, they've formed a community organization to make their voices heard. They said if it's a shooting or major emergency, the police will get there-- sometimes quite quickly. But it's a different story, they said, for quality of life issues like drug sales, public drinking and fights.
"There's been far too many instances where there's been no response at all," said Serethea Reid.
Ald. Deborah Graham (29th), whose office is in the Austin police district, said even she had to wait when she called 911 because an upset young man was in the office.
The police department took their time coming, at least it felt that way," Graham said.
Since sounding the alarm last summer, the Central Austin Neighborhood Association has met several times with high ranking police officials and Chicago's Office of Emergency Management (OEMC). But when they ask for specific information about 911 response times in their neighborhood, they're told again and again they can't have those numbers because the city doesn't want the bad guys to know where response is slow.
"If we start making public response times, we're creating a situation that could be an advantage to someone other than these good citizens," said OEMC Deputy Director Clarence Thomas.
We got the same answer when we tried digging into last summer's fatal shooting of nine-year-old Tanaja Stokes. She and her seven-year-old cousin were jumping rope in the Roseland neighborhood when a crowd of gangbangers began shouting at one another. A neighbor who does not want to be identified called 911, but said it took police more than 15 minutes to respond. By then, Tanaja had been caught in gang crossfire.
"If (the police) would've come when I called... those boys would have seen the police and they probably would have kept going," said the neighbor.
We wanted to know whether that call got the same attention as other 911 calls throughout the city. But the OEMC has refused all our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for 911 response times for each police district.
"This is a work in progress, and it's a work in progress in partnership with the citizens of the community," Chicago Police Commander Jim Roussel said. "So all the questions that are being raised are great questions and we need to have honest, forthright conversations about it."
Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is your emergency? Caller: I heard what sounded like gunshots coming from the brown house on the corner. Dispatcher: Do you have an address? Caller: No, I have on a blouse and slacks, why?
Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is your emergency? Caller: Someone broke into my house and took a bite out of my ham and cheese sandwich . Dispatcher: Excuse me? Caller: I made a ham and cheese sandwich and left it on the kitchen table and when I came back from the bathroom, someone had taken a bite out of it. Dispatcher: Was anything else taken? Caller: No, but this has happened to me before and I’m sick and tired of it!
Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is the nature of your emergency? Caller: I’m trying to reach nine eleven but my phone doesn’t have an eleven on it. Dispatcher: This is nine eleven. Caller: I thought you just said it was nine-one-one Dispatcher: Yes, ma’am nine-one-one and nine-eleven are the same thing. Caller: Honey, I may be old, but I’m not stupid.
My Personal Favorite!!! Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What’s the nature of your emergency? Caller: My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart Dispatcher: Is this her first child? Caller: No, you idiot! This is her husband!
And the winner is……….
Dispatcher: 9-1-1 Caller: Yeah, I’m having trouble breathing. I’m all out of breath. Darn….I think I’m going to pass out. Dispatcher: Sir, where are you calling from? Caller: I’m at a pay phone. North and Foster. Dispatcher: ! Sir, an ambulance is on the way. Are you an asthmatic? Caller: No Dispatcher: What were you doing before you started having trouble breathing? Caller: Running from the Police.
